Members of the Association of Former Forced Laborers and Deportees of Hungary, an organization composed of 10, 000 Hengarian Jews, picketed the German consulate here yesterday, demanding that the Bonn Government speed legislation to provide compensation to those victims of Nazism who were unable to file restitution applications prior to October 1953.
The 50 pickets were led by a cantor, Louis Goldstein, and presented a petition to the German consular officials, requesting that their petition be forwarded to Chancellor Ludwig Erhard. Under West Germany’s present law, only Nazi victims who filed restitution applications prior to October 1, 1953, may be considered for compensation.
An amendment to the law has been pending in Bonn’s Parliament for about a year. The amendment would permit compensation applications by those victims of Nazism who could not file because they were still in countries behind the Iron Curtain by the 1953 cut-off date. Dr. Zoltan Klar, president of the association, said the demonstration was tied to the fact that yesterday was the 20th anniversary of the Nazi occupation of Hungary.
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